Caesura
by TeatimeGeek
Summary: "You have sought peace in death, Heero, but there is peace this side of paradise." *complete*
1. chapter 1

A.C. 201

Contrary to what most people believed about him, Heero had no wish to return to the battlefield. He simply felt...unsettled, unfinished, un-something. He was in limbo, suspended between worlds, a confused mass of living potential in a cocoon, undecided about what he should become. That semester he took in classical literature was rubbing off on him.

There was no discussion of going back to St. Gabriel's from either of them, though college courses were offered at the new campus. She had joked about it in passing, the memory of the dance made her flush, which made him look away and change the subject. He returned to L1 to complete his education, she insisted that it was "very important for his reintegration into society." He enrolled at the post-graduate level, hidden behind falsified records and his age-ambiguous Asian features.

Heero switched majors three times in two semesters, the subjects all seemed frivolous to him. He could not sit through a class without the distinct feeling that he was pretending to be someone else, faking it all. He said as much to Duo, who visited Heero unannounced, smelling faintly of moonshine.

"I'll let you in on a secret-we're all fakin' it buddy, everyone pretends to be someone they're not for people they pretend to love." Duo answered melodramatically, and then invited himself to stay the night. He left early the next morning, and hoped Hilde had calmed from their most recent domestic spat.

It was early summer in the Northern Hemisphere when Heero returned to Earth, but he did not return to _her_ , not yet. Instead, he retraced his footsteps from the war, and found himself helping in the post-war rebuilding efforts of a small village, on the Eastern boarder of the Former Sanc Kingdom. He was paid enough to cover lodging and meals - he ran out of cash funds and did not feel inclined to tap the blood money of the Barton Foundation.

The men he worked with were not chatty past the barest greetings, the solemnity of war still felt too fresh. He spent six weeks to help the villagers rebuild a small stone church. That they chose to prioritize its reconstruction while their homes still lay in ruins perplexed him.

"The spirit comes before the flesh." One of the men grunted out. They all cramped inside the cargo van to wait for the flash storm to let up. Others nodded their agreement while they washed down dry rations with watery tea, they may as well eat if they couldn't work. Heero did not question their reasoning on the matter.

He was invited to the first Sunday Service after the rebuild was completed. Out of politeness and mild curiosity, he went. The small stone sanctuary was filled to the rafters, people came from hamlets near and far. The stoic men he came to know in the past few weeks turned uncharacteristically jovial, transformed completely by the reunion with their families. Heero stood by the door and felt out of place, he never cared enough to let social awkwardness bother him, but the sudden wave of envy caught him off guard. He slipped out quietly, and the stones he laid rang with songs of praise.

He stayed in the village, after all, there were still houses to rebuild, infrastructure to repair, and he had nowhere he needed to be, really. He developed calluses on his hands from lumber framing, got cuts on his fingers from wiring houses, and sore muscles _everywhere_ from that one week he helped baling hay . For the first time since he tumbled out of Zero, he felt real. And slowly, inexplicably, he began to feel a sense of comradery with the men he worked with, and begun to think of them as "his crew". How odd, Heero thought, to have always fought alone yet in this place...

They had just finished laying down the roof of the newest house when it began to snow in earnest, great big flakes that floated down and did not melt when they touched the ground. No sooner had the hammering ceased, the silence was broken by delighted childish squeals from the streets below.

Heero climbed down with the others, each man packed up their own tools. Pierre, one of the older men on the reconstruction team, lit his tobacco pipe and offered it to Heero under the eaves. Heero took it, pulled a small polite puff and handed it back with a nod of thanks.

"That's it for this year lad, once the snows come we can't work no more."

"Hn."

"I'm sorry we couldn't pay you proper," Pierre said apologetically, and blew a cloud of smoke into the thin air of winter, "you should have something to show for it after all the help you put in..."

Heero did not tell him that he has a standing offer from the Preventers, which he suspected was Une's attempt to keep tabs on him. "I'm not in want of money."

"No? Well your money can't buy you peace eh lad, or is there some other reason you've been hiding in these backwaters for three whole seasons playing lumberjack?"

Heero eyed him warily and shoved his chilly fingers into the pockets of his jacket, which, he remembered with a scowl, was plaid. The man had never before been so forward, perhaps he was emboldened by Heero's imminent departure. Pierre finished his pipe, and was now emptying the bowl by tapping it on the heel of his own boot.

"And what is this 'peace' that can't be bought?" Heero decided to humour him, as he had started to more and more now that he'd become familiar with the crew.

Pierre looked up at the thick, grey clouds. "You know that feeling when you lie down on a soft bed after a hard day's work?" Heero's look turned skeptical. Pierre chuckled and continued, "To rest easy is to have peace. You're running, from what or who I don't know. Eveyone's running from something after a war like this. But you've got to face it head-on willingly, before it catches up to you. Face it, or you'll keep running and never find rest." Without waiting for a reply, he patted Heero once on the shoulder and went into the newly finished house to join the celebration. A wave of gruff laughter and a few shrill notes from a penny whistle wafted out before the door was closed against the cold evening.

Left alone outside, Heero stepped out from the shadow of the house and looked up the same way Pierre had done a moment ago. White fluffy flakes fell lightly onto his face and stuck to his lashes. He closed his eyes and thought back to another time it snowed on Earth, and remembered melting steel and rubble and gun smoke, and the softness and warmth of her that followed him into the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

A.C. 201

The Sanc Kingdom conformed to the classic definition of a city state. It did not boast a great industrial metropolis, but was a city of merchants situated between the mountains and the bay, surrounded by small towns, villages, and a surprisingly large portion of active farmland.

The capital New Port was built to human scale, with terribly nostalgic infrastructure still in operation, such as the streetcars of downtown core and a very short rail line that connected the warehouse district to the port. The first time he looked at the city was from an aircraft window, mind hazy with pain and the fading adrenaline from battle. Quatre had enthusiastically pointed it out as soon as its metal rooftops gleamed on the horizon. She's beautiful, Quatre had whispered. A beautiful mirage, Heero thought darkly, and fleeting as vapour. Pastures stretched green and vulnerable under them, the countryside was guarded by farmers with hounds and rifles, less than useless against mobile suits. Heero looked away from the window, afraid that his mere gaze would bring down fire and destruction. When he limped down the steps of the plane towards her, he had the odd notion that he should have been dunked in the bay first before setting foot on her soil.

Heero entered the city by ferry this time, all his belongings fitted into a duffle, tucked between his feet. A bus ran once a week to the docks and was one of only three buses to ever stop in the village. The guys sent him off with a round of beer and their wives pressed sweets and jerky into his hands. He had the suspicion that he was just adopted as a stray pup.

He chose the open deck seating on the ferry, cold air stung his eyes and salty foams of the bay brought up images of other waters, and he mused that he was always crossing the blue to see her.

New Port City looked different from the ground, he noted as he stepped onto the pavement, still feeling the waves under his feet. He'd had persistently reoccurring nightmares when he first arrived on earth as a boy, always sinking and drowning and waking up so sweaty, he may as well have taken another dip in the sea.

After his very public dance with _her_ -what was he thinking?- his dreams were of a more... pleasant but troublesome variety. She chased his little boat like the crest of a wave, made him unsteady, tilted his center of gravity to and fro. Had he already been running even back then? Here he was again, washed up on her shores.

Duffle slung over one shoulder, he walked his way uphill, towards the old castle nestled at the foot of the mountains. The streets were not busy by his metropolitan standards, but he hadn't been among crowds for the better half of a year. It was warmer in the city, Heero unzipped the front of his jacket as he trod the pedestrian-only road.

People thinned out as he approached the base of the mountain, it was not high tourist season. The former Alliance military base south of the castle had been fully demolished following the "liberation" by OZ, in its place stood the new Peacecraft Estate, where the heir to the monarchy conducted most of her business. Way to make a statement Relena, he ducked his head to hide a smirk.

She turned the old castle into a museum, cleared out the debris, fixed the moldings, and left a few rooms untouched where she wanted to showcase the vandalism of the Alliance. Two memorials of white stone were erected on either side of the entrance to the castle grounds, one dedicated to soldiers, and the other to civilians. Royal guards in former Sanc Kingdom ceremonial uniforms patrolled the grounds. When Relena had first announced the museum project to the public last summer, a group of ex-soldiers submitted a formal request to the Peacecraft Estate, to ask for her permission to form a volunteer unarmed unit to guard the old castle grounds. And so it came to be, that ex-soldiers from different sides of the war, now march together cradling empty old muskets.

He entered the estate building through its heavy double doors, walked through a metal detector which he approved of very much, and took out a carefully folded document from inside his jacket. His eyes scanned the page again as he approached the reception and handed it to the man behind the desk.

He didn't have to wait long to be summoned, escorted in by a man barely older than himself. He noticed that his escort walked with a barely perceivable stiff gait in the left foot, ah, another ex-combatant.

Her office was modest, the wall to one side lined with bookshelves and a long couch on the opposite end. She sat facing the door, behind a desk small enough that she could easily reach across to offer a handshake. He remembered how much she disliked her desk at the ESUN, how small it made her feel. She did not offer him a handshake however, but only stared wide-eyed. As soon as the door clicked close behind him, she burst into giggles.

Heero frowned. This was not how he expected to be greeted after two years of longing, on her part of course, she had said as much in her messages. He stood by the door, and tracked her with his eyes as she rose from her desk to stalk up to him. Her lips still quivered with mirth when she stopped in front of him.

"My dear Heero...What _is_ that on your face?"

He put a hand to his own cheek, ah.

"Insulation."


	3. Chapter 3

A.C. 201

She laughed so freely that it startled him as if out of a deep sleep. When she reached for his hand, he gave it to her without hesitation, and met her half way. His skin tingled from their point of contact, the sensation shot from his palm up his arm and spread to warm the whole front of his torso. His chest and stomach contracted involuntarily as he let out a deep sound of delight, and he pulled her into him.

She quieted momentarily. He tucked her face into his neck, deliberately rubbed her cheek with his hairy jaw. She squealed and squirmed but he held her close until they both stilled, she felt squeezed every time he inhaled. He smelled like wood smoke and sunlight and sea, and was much broader than she remembered. Her words were muffled by his sweater when she finally spoke.

"Are you really going to stay here?"

"If you'll approve my application."

The combination of his embrace and his voice was too much for her, she stepped back feeling suddenly hot. He tilted his head to look at her and waited, there was a mark on her right cheek from being pressed against the zipper of his jacket, he fought the urge to trace it with his thumb. She had more colour in her skin than her ESUN days, and he was selfishly glad to feel more relaxed about her safety now.

She cleared her throat and almost ran back to her desk, snatched up his application and tried to focus on his neatly slanted handwriting. With her back to him, she busied herself by reading the contents again, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, flustered. He followed and stopped behind her, the ear she had just exposed was rosy pink, and he could see peach fuzz on its soft shell against the light from the windows. He remembered feeling the heat from the Earth's atmosphere in the cockpit of his mobile suit, and thinking then that he would die for the colonies, but he would survive for _her_. The odd timing of the thought did not bother him, he had long gotten used to the way Relena intruded his mind seemingly at random.

Many have killed and died for ideals, but they had not the fortune to find a reason to keep on living. Was it less selfish then, for him to have survived for the sake of another?

Brave are those who march off to fight, braver still are those who come back to rebuild what's been destroyed, she once declared, it was one of her last speeches as the Vice Foreign Minister. Relena was the youngest to hold the office, and the youngest to retire from it.

Let us be generous and forgiving, not giving way to envy and resentment. For we who lived through the catastrophe of the war have all been given another chance at life. How then shall we live? The founders of a great nation once challenged its citizens to pursue happiness. Today I put forth a new challenge to you, ladies and gentlemen of the Earth Sphere and colonies, to pursue peace. Peace first within our own hearts, then with each other, and finally with all mankind...

He knew that speech by heart, he'd helped her rehearse it. It was no longer the wishful thinking of an ideologically naive young girl, but a call for shared responsibility to every human being. That had been an especially difficult year; five assassination attempts and a coup from within the Preventers that almost destroyed the organization. He was called in on special assignment officially in June of that year, though he had been tailing her secretly for months.

Presently, she turned around to look at him, her face half hid behind the thin sheet of paper, but he knew by the shape of her eyes that she was grinning.

"You have quite the ambitious plan Mr. Yuy, are you sure you can handle three careers in tandem?"

"I like to keep busy." He replied easily, and tried to ignore the way she looked at him through her lashes. Relena schooled her expression into a semblance of professionalism, and lowered the page to look at him seriously. She took a deep breath.

"The resettlement program requires that you use your assigned acreage for agriculture or forestry, and that it is yours for as long as you are the active steward. A half hectare may be cultivated for subsistence should you desire to do so, and any developments including but not limited to wells, irrigation, houses and earthworks will be funded by the land holder. The deed will be transferred from the Crown to the heir of settler with full mineral rights if inherited by two consecutive generations..."

She faltered as he stepped into her space, his eyes squinted half in amusement and half impatient. Still she attempted to finish speaking.

"It is encouraged for foreign settlers to integrate into general society, participate in the celebrations of civic holidays and volunteer at local charitable organizations. Should the settler decide to enter into civil union with a citizen-" she blushed redder and swallowed determinedly, "his or her immigration status will be updated to full citizenship, with the right of representation and property ownership, for as long as the union shall last."

"I read it, I signed it." He shuffled even closer, the tips of his heavy work boots almost touched her dainty flats.

"In that case," She breathed against his lips with a smile, "welcome to the Sanc Kingdom."


	4. Chapter 4

A.C. 198

"You've accrued too much power Relena."

His voice drifted to her in the dark.

"The war is over, people of the Earth can no longer be united behind one figure, not without a tangible common enemy."

He only gave utterance to what she did not want to say out loud, the irony of the reversal of her public persona was not lost on either of them.

She was not afraid of death, he had known this about her early on in their acquaintance. What she feared more and more was the power vacuum that would be created by her sudden demise, which she no longer considered a mere possibility, but an unavoidable eventuality. As sharp and paranoid as he was, Heero was not infallible, and sooner or later he _would_ slip up. All it would take was one mistake and... She was unafraid, he was terrified. He took to sleeping on a cot in the corner of her room, a guard posted outside her door, another stationed on her balcony. He hated that she had a balcony.

"Your office was never meant to carry so much influence, you were only supposed to be a glorified ambassador." He was exhausted and grumpy, the pitch of his voice sounded almost petty.

"Thanks a lot Heero, should've told me that three years ago." She rebutted gently. She was so tired, but sleep did not come easily to her.

It wasn't just the Foreign Minister's office, Heero saw the same problem brewing with the Preventers. A few key individuals called all the shots, without whom the entire organization would collapse. Une refused any and all directives to expand recruitment numbers. She did not wish to amass an army, she much preferred small, semi-autonomous elite teams of agents to keep the organization agile and adaptable. However, it also meant they were spread thin and vulnerable to corruption. Trowa had ferreted out a few bad actors over the years, but it was not a long term solution. The screening process for new recruits was beyond vigorous, but the high-achieving talent they sought in a candidate also tended to come with ambitions across other domains.

Wufei was the first to sound the alarm, being the most well-read on military history out of the group. The glaring weakness of their current system, he cautioned, was its absolute universal monopoly on the use of force. Never had a more centralized military power ever been conceived. Under the ESUN charter at the time, it was the only legal armed force. Heero knew, that the problem with the Preventers was not only structural, but built-in to the very justification for its existence.

"We do not have a lifetime to accomplish universal disarmament, our lives will be cut short." He did not survive the war just so he could watch her die. "The moral integrity of our successors cannot be guaranteed. Such a concentration of power can and will be abused." He paused pointedly, "not to mention the horrors that will be done in your name, justified by your death."

They were both quiet for a long moment, time imperceptible in the darkness of her room. He had actually removed any timepiece of hers that ticked, saying it could mask the noise of an intruder. In any case it wouldn't do for him to become accustomed to white noise.

He knew she was still awake from the rhythm of her breathing. He knew too, when she inhaled deeply to speak, that she had made up her mind.

"We must diminish our roles, I must make myself...redundant."

She was hesitant but spoke with a certain finality. He was confident that her mind had already started working on an exit strategy, they would talk it over in the morning.

Satisfied by her answer, he listened as her breathing evened out to a light snore, then he too allowed himself to drift into unconsciousness. They did not know that in three hours, they would be roused by news of a coup d'etat.


	5. Chapter 5

A.C. 201

They walked on a narrow pedestrian path that ran alongside the fully rebuilt harbours, as she filled him in on the nitty gritty details of running her small country. He listened intently and inclined slightly towards her when she spoke, as if to scoop up her every word with his ears. Relena had become a much more relaxed woman in his absence, there was a warmth to her that contrasted greatly with the chill of early winter.

The Sanc Kingdom had officially ceased to exist for almost two decades, the Alliance did such a thorough job eradicating any loyalist groups left in the country, the capital and surrounding towns were all but empty. Residents sought refuge in neighboring countries rather than suffer under the boot of the Alliance.

When Relena first decided to reclaim her heritage, she found her kingdom to be not much more than a ghost town. Much of the infrastructure was damaged, and there was no one to repair the deep dents left in the streets by the invading mobile suits.

She stood for a long time in front of what used to be the Alliance military base.

"Do you remember that giant imprint of the Tallgeese in the shape of the rubble?" She shook her head in disbelief. "The operation logs were made available to me through Lady Une, the pilot was not Milliardo."

Her brother had abdicated his birthright and his responsibilities, insisting that his hands have spilt too much blood. It took the death of a good friend to shake him out of his vengeful rapture.

"A good man died in my place that day, dear sister." Milliardo told her over a rare video call.

"There remain many like him who are still loyal to the Peacecraft family, they are scattered and waiting." There was a crease between her brother's brows that reminded her painfully of their father's portrait. "Gather your people and lead them home Relena."

And so she did. Heartened by the return of their once lost princess, many who fled during the war have started to come back to their homeland. Typically, the men would arrive first to make their home habitable again, then their families would follow.

One of her first act as the reigning monarch was to set up the "Peacetime Resettlement Program for Ex-Combatants". For she knew that not all who fled would return, and not all who wished to do so had the means. There were many ex-soldiers looking for a purpose, she was happy to provide that for them. Not to mention, her country could use the extra able bodies.

Next, she hammered out a treaty with the Winner Corporation. In exchange for helping to fund the reconstruction efforts, Winner Corp would control one of the three major commercial harbours of New Port City, for one hundred years. In addition, the free movement of persons between the L4 colonies and the Sanc Kingdom was to be guaranteed.

"And, " Quatre tagged on the document in a way only he could get away with, "the promise of eternal friendship between the Peacecraft and Winner families."

Even Heero huffed at that.

From these efforts, the Sanc region was experiencing a cultural renaissance. The local economy boomed with the rising population, though the density was still a far cry from historically desirable levels. Never the less, the Kingdom was once again recognized as a sovereign nation. Neighbouring countries made no attempts to annex the territories of the former Sanc Kingdom during the years of unrest, the global politics leaning heavily away from national independence. When the war was over in A.C. 196, with the popularity of Relena as an international figure, it would've been bad optics to make a move on her unclaimed inheritance.

Presently, she led Heero to the western most end of the city via a board walk, where a huge lighthouse marked the boundary between bay and ocean. They stopped at the foot of the lighthouse and leaned on the railing at the edge of the water, the sleeves of their winter jackets touching lightly.

The salt water bay was navigable even in winter, which meant that New Port City was kept busy year round. Ships heavy with cargo departed from the ports daily, carrying goods from many of the surrounding countries out to the Atlantic.

"I've never been away from you for this long." He spoke against the wind and the waves.

"Two years." She nodded.

Back when the reconstruction was still in its early stages, they had often strolled on the pebbled beach of New Port. Relena had reveled in her new found freedom to just be outside. She expected him to drop off the map as soon as she retired from the ESUN that spring, but to her continued surprise, he stayed on as her security and even followed her to the Sanc Kingdom. It took a while for him to accept that she no longer needed his protection, the path to stabilization after the Preventers coup was so intensely tumultuous that he was still reluctant to let her out of his sight a year later.

It was early autumn when they last walked here, where she sent him away. He had become so restless then that she took pity on him.

"Was I _really_ that miserable?"

"Mhm, like a penned up workhorse." She paused and waited for a fog horn to pass, "I could practically see you stomping and snorting."

She leaned into his arm playfully, but he stared straight ahead, his jaw clenched and unclenched as he chewed on his next words.

"I didn't want to go, you know." He almost whispered, she had to strain to hear him. "But you didn't need me anymore, and there was no reason for me to stay."

"Why are you here now Heero?"

He looked at her with a small, secret smile, his expression amplified by the contour of his beard. She was really beginning to like that beard.

"I realized I don't need an excuse to be near you."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Time markers have been added at the beginning of each chapter to help with continuity.


	6. Chapter 6

A.C. 199

Heero did not like the lectures given at the university on L1, if the professor was just going to read her own textbook to the class, he'd much rather study alone.

On the other hand, he found the extensive library on campus to be of more interest. For most of his life, he only gleaned information from screens and monitors. Reading was a purely utilitarian task, never done for pleasure. The university library possessed what to him seemed like an excessively vast collection of physical books. There were entire floors dedicated to history, philosophy, classic literature, closed-systems ecology, and mythology, just to name a few that piqued his interest. There were even replicas of technical manuals dating back to the 1800s A.D., complete with patent information. These were for reference use only and never to be borrowed out of the library, but they were available inside the facility to all post-graduate students.

At first, Heero only browsed the shelves out of curiosity. Though he never spent any extensive lengths of downtime with Relena, she had perceived that he was an inherently curious man, and encouraged him to explore that side of him.

Flipping through a physical book, he found, was a tactile treat. Initially, he often swiped his finger across the page, mistaking it for a digital tablet, these were embarrassing moments he kept to himself. Soon he was savoring the smooth glide of paper against paper as he turned each leaf. What he enjoyed most was the waft of ink with a hint of vanilla that filled his senses as he devoured the contents of the page. It reminded him of her. She once offered him a bite of her midnight snack, an unhealthy mixture of sugar, eggs, flour, and vanilla. It was a rare indulgence, but she really needed the boost of energy that night.

"Don't make me bear the burden of this guilty pleasure all by myself Heero," she pleaded with him wearing a tired smile, documents arranged in radiating patterns around her on the bed.

He missed her. Between the yellowing pages and dusty book shelves, he missed her terribly. It was a sour feeling in his belly, a shortness of breath, a phantom pain in his chest. Had he ever missed her before? Heero couldn't say for sure. He had gone to her in the past, driven by the necessity to kill her, and then the need to protect her. But she was in no danger now, she kept a low profile as the princess of a tiny country, and his longing was naked and without excuse.

Sometimes he thought it just, to punish himself by denying his innermost desires.

In his darkest moments, he remembered the things done to him as a boy, and the things he did during his career as a soldier. He had once hoped that all the blame for the miseries of war could be laid upon the instigators and profiteers. It's a fact that the ones actually fighting, are never perceived as being tainted, he wrote at one point with conviction. But he did feel tainted. He could recall each of his decisions to kill, to terminate a life. He was a willing participant, and sometimes even enjoyed it.

Heero was not trained as conventional soldiers were, who blindly followed orders without question; rather he was programmed with a set of ethics, which guided his actions regardless of mission parameters. Dekim Barton may have ordered for his emotions to be purged, but the sneaky doctor had instead taught him to internalize his feelings and use them as another set of data.

To blame someone else for his own actions was to strip himself of all agency, and he wasn't naive enough to make that mistake. Even the trick played on him by OZ at New Edwards was only possible because he had already made up his mind to kill, OZ had merely swapped his victims list.

Perhaps Zechs was correct in his self-imposed exile. But Noin ran off after him. According to Wufei, if a woman was willing to go beyond the ends of the earth for you, you'd be a fool to not at least try to hold on to her. Duo had joked that they should collect the guy's quotes for a manly self-help book. But Heero conceded that the man had a point.

Relena had followed him half way around the moon. He had held her only once.

It was after the third attempt on Relena's life in the eventful year of A.C.198, the Vice Foreign Minister was invited to a panel discussion on "The Merits of Different Systems of Government" at the university on L3, in conjunction with her diplomatic visit to the remote colony. A woman had rushed the stage during Q and A, brandishing a fiberglass garrotte. Years later psychologists would still be publishing white-papers about her brazenly medieval choice in murder weapon.

Heero made quick work of disposing the assailant, who was incapacitated and cuffed before the crowd could even react. It was an easier threat to take care of compared with snipers or explosives, the attackers being not very strong, but the effect was a lot more personal. Relena had seen her would-be killer face to face, and the malevolence she saw there shook her to the core.

Five hours later on the long shuttle ride back to earth, she was still shaking occasionally. Heero had switched the cabin lighting to night mode, and wrapped her in a blanket in an effort to sooth her nerves.

"We used to be a fierce people," she said to him in a hushed tone, "Northern European women defended their home and children, while their men sailed away raping and pillaging."

He sat down beside her, and looked at her in the dim light. He could make out the whites of her eyes before she squeezed them shut as she shook with another wave of shivers.

"Don't try to fight the physiological effects of shock." He had chided her softly, and put a hand across her back. She swallowed and continued speaking with a trembling voice.

"But we discovered chocolate, and the most aggressive thing we've done since then was invent cheap furniture with bad assembly instruction." It was hardly her best joke, but she kept speaking as if she was afraid of silence, terrible things lurked in the silence.

He put his other arm around her too, twisting in his seat so his torso faced her. She pressed her forehead against his cheek, strands of her hair tickled his lips.

"I'm just like her." She said against his shoulder, and inhaled uneasily.

For a moment, Heero couldn't follow her thoughts.

"I tried to take revenge for father." Relena's voice had turned into a whimper, as if her throat was welling up with tears instead of her eyes. "She's lost someone too Heero, I know that look in her eyes, I've seen it in the mirror."

He held her tighter, and didn't say a word.

"We're all broken people, capable of great evil." She hid her face against the side of his neck, and he felt her lips move when she spoke. "Take away the guns and the swords, and we'll still tear each other apart with our bare hands."

"We fight because there are some things in this world worth protecting." He pulled away from her enough to look at her in the low light, "The correct course of action is not always clear when that something is taken away. Vengeance is in every grieving heart that desires justice."

She shook her head, and freed her arms from the blanket to reach for him. Her dress shirt was unbuttoned at the wrists, and the soft skin of her forearms pressed against the nape of his neck. She tucked herself back into him.

"Grace and mercy."

He wasn't sure what she meant, but it sounded like she had found closure at least temporarily. There was a warm dampness on the skin of his neck that slowly spread to wet his collar.

Grace and mercy was what he held in his arms at that moment. He remembered noticing that every part of him touching her felt strange and a little painful, his heart constricted and caused him to take a hurried breath, his lungs filled with the scent of her.

The mini LED lamp flickered as it blinked out of batteries, sounds of the library returned to his ears, it brought Heero out of his reverie. He detached the dead lamp from the book and closed his readings with a sigh, he was not going to get through another page today. Damned Russian novelists and their long-winded, morally ambiguous tales.

He stood up from the carpeted floor, shook his legs of pins and needles. Instead of bringing books all the way down to the common reading area, he preferred plopping down directly under the shelf that housed whatever book he was currently reading. The hefty volume was carefully returned to its correct place, the Dewey system was archaic but effective.

He ran his fingers along the hardcover spines, and recalled the feeling of her skin against his own. How he craved that strange pain now, pain has been a good teacher all his life, it was his body's way of saying: this is important, pay attention.

He knew it to be a glimpse of something wonderful, if he dared to hope for it.

Heero stepped out of the library and into the simulated dusk, the colony temperature was set to a comfortable 15 degrees Celsius at night. The earth was visible above him, bright like the moon. He stood upside down on a celestial mathematician's dream, suspended between the pull of the sun and moon under his feet, and the tug of the planet over head.

We are sixty thousand miles apart, he often thought. How was it that her gravity could knock him out of his equilibrium across such great distances?


	7. Chapter 7

A.C. 202

Over the six months of long winter, Heero visited the numerous gyms, fitness clubs, and dojos in New Port City. With the country's policy of welcoming ex-soldiers, many such facilities have popped up.

Of all the schools, the closest to Heero's style of combat was Krav Maga. He had sparred with Wufei occasionally back when they both served with the Preventers. The Chinese man was infuriated by Heero's blunt techniques, and often called him artless and uncultured. Heero preferred the term _efficient_.

As a man, Heero had a disagreeable temperament and was naturally competitive, which sometimes translated to physical aggression. There were times he felt he wasn't fit to be around Relena, too vigorous and in need of release. It wasn't a problem when he was engaged in hard labour daily, but now that winter had set in, his days were occupied with online courses and light chores. He itched for exertion, to sweat and strain and struggle, and he could satisfy that itch on the mat.

His favorite place was a dojo opened by a retired sergeant from Brazil, who taught "Aiki-Jujitsu". According to this sensei, Aikido and Jujitsu used to be one school, all he was doing was restoring it back to its origins. Heero didn't particularly care for the flashy flips or the fanciful throws, but the joint manipulation kept him keen. Surprisingly, training sessions also mandated meditation. He thought it pointless in the beginning, categorized it with the rest of the filigree that characterized this style. Soon however, he began to find it helpful, it focused his mind during practice, and even calmed him at home.

 _The Art of Peace,_ practitioners called it reverently. Peaceful resolutions to conflicts through harmonization of energies. The philosophy suited the Sanc Kingdom. Heero entertained the thought of inviting Relena to a practice session, she would enjoy the dance-like techniques, and he would enjoy... well, _harmonizing_ with her. Though he was not quite sure how his classmates would react to the Princess stepping onto their sweaty tatami, nor was he eager to publish his acquaintance with her to others.

He had been temporarily put up in the grounds keeper's cabin at the Peacecraft residence with Pagan, to help the old butler with some of the more strenuous duties in the winter. The loyal servant was getting on in years, but was no stranger to the cold. After all, the Sanc Kingdom was his childhood home, and the old man felt glad to be spending his final years here. Brought into the service of the royal family in his teens, Pagan had three generations of Peacecrafts. Heero gleaned from local hearsay that the old servant was the one who rescued the infant princess from the burning castle, and delivered her to the then senator Darlian. This was the reason Heero allowed the man to put him up to seemingly ridiculous chores around the manor, ordering him around all the while calling him "Master" Yuy.

One frigid January morning, Heero climbed through knee-high snow banks just to get to Relena's door. The servants entrance he usually used, located conveniently behind the manor next to the cabin, froze shut. He could force it open but the antique door would be ruined by such brutish methods. Also, Pagan forbade it, so he shoveled his way from the cabin out back, around the large manor to the front door.

Relena did not work on the weekends, and always gave Pagan the Saturday off. Cooking was a leisure she had not been allowed to enjoy since she was a little girl, and now she never passed up on any opportunity to play the chef. This particular morning, Heero was lured in by the promise of pancakes and syrup, the smell vented out of her kitchen and floated around the garden. His stomach growled like a wild beast, and he shoveled faster, snow flung carelessly into the air over his head.

He was caked in the white stuff when he finally made it into her foyer, wild hair frozen into spikes and beard full of icicles. He stomped his boots and unzipped the front of his coat. She touched his exposed red ears with her warm-hot fingers, and fussed about him not wearing a hat in such dreadful weather. The collar of her definitively proper blouse folded _just so_ with the upward motion of her arms. From his vantage, Heero could see the valley between her soft peaks under the silky fabric. Suddenly he was hungry for something else entirely.

His hands grabbed her smaller ones and his face descended to meet hers, icicles and all. His lips were cold from the outside air, but his breath and tongue was fire. Ice melted against her skin as she melted against him, and he pushed her towards the nearest wall with his lips, his torso, any and all parts of him that touched her. This was dangerous territory, something in his mind cautioned. He liked danger, another part of him replied rather smugly. He especially liked the way she felt all pliable and lithe against him, with her eyes closed and her mouth open.

Something in him burned and strained, he moved a knee between hers. Relena's eyes shot open, and she pushed him away with a yelp. Alarmed, he looked her up and down checking for signs of harm. Her face was flushed, panting lips swollen, and her hands were clutched over her heart. There was a seriousness to her eyes that sobered him up. He had crossed a line with her that he had no right to tread upon.

Some games you don't get to play unless you're _all in_.

Ever the diplomat, Relena offered him an olive branch. She feigned exasperation, diagnosed him with "a severe case of cabin fever", and prescribed that he shovel her driveway by hand. He was sent out with a ridiculous knitted thing on his head, and she watched him from her window as he cleared the previous night's snowfall from her ten-car driveway.

When he came back inside, Pagan greeted him at the door with a broom. Heero stood obediently still as snow was brushed off his coat, before joining them in the kitchen for breakfast.

He peeked at her through his bangs when she served him a tall stack of pancakes, and knew that his earlier transgressions were forgiven from the smile that dimpled her cheek.

Spring came slowly and then all at once. The canal roared with snowmelt from the mountains, migratory birds returned with new songs, and the ground of her garden was soft and yielding when he stepped off the stone path. Heero shed his winter coat with his winter beard, and presented himself to her freshly shaven. She grinned up at him with whimsy in her eyes, and kissed him chastely on his now smooth jaw.

"What's that for?"

"It's the first time I've seen your face in almost three years."

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A note about the ending paragraphs of chapter 6, if you're confused, follow the link here. Lagrange points are a thing of beauty.

http/gundam./wiki/Lagrange_Points


	8. Chapter 8

A.C. 196.

Heero woke without raising his heartbeat or changing his breathing, and slowly opened his eyes. After he had assessed his surroundings, he sighed in relief and sat up carefully. A flimsy folding chair had been placed by his bed, a dusty pink blazer draped over the back of it. There was no mistaking the embroidery on the lapels, she had come to see him at one point. She may yet come back for her jacket.

He quickly checked over his physical condition. Left clavicle was cracked, along with a fractured acromion process on the same shoulder. His head was bandaged for a cut he knew was just behind his temple. Numerous other scratches, bruises, and superficial puncture wounds covered his left side, and a swollen ankle from a miscalculated fall. Nothing too serious that a few courses of anti-inflammatory drugs couldn't fix. He was hungry, dehydrated, and really needed to use the facilities.

There was a washroom attached to his small hospital suite, he limped to it urgently in his bare feet. The papery hospital gown made him feel very undignified as it wisped around him, chill of winter seeped up his soles despite the central heating that vented out of the ceiling. Afterward, he scrubbed his face and teeth at the sink, and looked himself in the mirror. A patch of his hair had been shorn off for stitches, an abrasion on his left cheek had scabbed over. His chin sprouted a few scraggly hairs, it was annoyingly itchy. He hadn't shaved nor showered for days, his skin felt sticky from dried sweat.

He ran a list of pertinent tasks through his brain, while wiping himself down best he could with dampened paper towels. There were a number of loose ends regarding his connection to the Barton Foundation, things he didn't want others to find. He needed to go back to a few of the bases in the colonies to purge any trails that led back to him, time was of the essence, it wouldn't be long before Preventers started digging. Of course there was no hiding anything from the likes of Trowa, but the man had tight lips, and the pilots all had so much dirt on each other already, it wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things. And then there was the matter of disposing Wing Zero...

She found him sitting in his hospital bed around 8pm, scooping green jelly out of a plastic cup. The shaved spot on his head reminded her of her only childhood friend, a chocolate lab mix who had once come back from the vet missing a patch of its fur. Heero was no puppy, but he brought out the mother hen in her regardless. She suppressed the sentiment, having judged it to be wholly inappropriate.

"The rescue efforts are just wrapping up, they've found only two more injured soldiers with non-fatal wounds, and no casualties on either side."

He nodded thanks, and up-ended the rest of the jelly into his mouth. She hoped it would ease his worry to know that he had not caused unnecessary loss of life.

His eyes followed her as she came in to the room, while he put down the empty plastic cup on his blanketed legs, and leaned back onto the propped up pillows.

It occurred to her then that she had never seen him eat before, nor look this relaxed. The thought made her smile as she sat down in the folding chair, and stared back at him. She observed absent-mindedly that at the tender age of sixteen, he had managed to put a permanent wrinkle between his bushy brows. It made his otherwise neutral expression appear rather severe.

"Commander Une wanted me to tell you that a job opened up, Noin has...was, reassigned."

More precisely, Noin left with her brother two days ago and had sent back a message as an afterthought. A part of Relena envied the older woman, but her days of chasing after Heero had ended when she took up her father's mantle.

Heero spoke evenly. "There are other things I must take care of first."

She almost deflated until the last of his words sunk in. _First_...He meant to come back. The quirk at the corner of his dry lips told her he saw the full sequence of her thoughts. She blushed and stood up to walk around his bed, and hid her embarrassment by looking out the window.

In the shadow casted by her own reflection, she could see satellites blinking in the clear night sky. A streak of light zipped in the distance, a piece of debris burning up in the atmosphere, and she traced its path on the cold glass with her fingertips. She sought his eyes with her own, and they looked at each other through their reflections.

"I think I saw you when you first came to earth, there was an atmospheric entry capsule behind our shuttle." She closed her eyes, remembering. "Father called it Operation Meteor. I was sure it was you." I thought you were a prince from the stars, she didn't say that part out loud.

Heero's eyes widened and he bolted upright, hands fisted the sheets. Hurriedly, she turned with concern, afraid that somehow her words had hurt him.

"I'm sorry Heero, those memories must be unpleasant for you, it was thoughtless of me..." She trailed off, at a loss of how to continue. When it was clear that he refused to meet her eyes again, she signed in defeat and touched his arm hesitantly, the muscles there were tense and hard as a rock.

"Relena... I'm not worth your trouble."

He looked lost in his memories, and she silently cursed herself for bringing it up.

 _Life is cheap, especially mine._

"You're wrong you know, your life is infinitely precious to me."

He shook his head from side to side, as if he could shake off her words. She was beginning to fear that her presence would always remind him of the days of battle. He sat there mute, with his head bowed, arms shaking from over-contracted muscles.

"If you want to protect me, Heero, you need also protect what I value most."

She knelt down to look up at him, her chin level with the edge of the hospital bed. His face was turned away from her so only his profile was visible, eyes squeezed shut, nostrils flaring sporadically.

"Heero please," he felt her touch the white knuckles of his right hand, and then felt something much warmer, much softer. His head jerked up and he looked at her, eyes wide with fear and wonder. Having achieved the desired effect, Relena continued.

"Please take care of yourself as you would care for me."

She was not saying such things out of conceit. Of all the times he had expressed his high regard for her, she never detected even a trace of insincerity. She knew she held at least some influence over him, and was not above using it for an occasion such as this.

He blinked slowly and swallowed, and finally croaked out an "I will."

Knowing how many times he had refused to make her promises he could not keep, she was satisfied with this response. Relena stood up and gathered her blazer, stopping at the door to glance back at him once more.

"I'll see you soon."

It was not a question, so he did not answer. Instead he watched her close his door, her slow, thoughtful footsteps picked up speed and faded away down the hall.

Heero looked down at his hand, and let out a shuddering breath, feeling an impossible mixture of self-disgust and elation. Waves of cold sweat made him feel clammy all over. The image of the small shuttle against the blue earth flashed again and again behind his eyelids. How close had he been from shooting it down that day? This thought alone was what rendered him immobile in front of her.

And she had just kissed the hand that would have so carelessly erased her existence.


	9. Chapter 9

A.C. 202

When Heero first suggested that she spend the weekend camping with him on his newly granted crown land (which actually meant it was Relena's land), she made a face at him.

"Mosquitoes Heero, they love me! And why sleep on the ground in a tent as bug bait when we can rent a cottage?"

"You and I are not allowed to sleep in the same dwelling alone. Your own rules, Princess."

He only called her _Princess_ when he wanted to annoy her, she crossed her arms unconvinced, he needed to do better than a simple taunt to coax her into the uncivilized wild with him.

Heero unfolded her arms methodically and placed them down her sides, his own hands glided up from her elbows and held her lightly at the shoulders. He leaned in, eyes dancing. "You won't be sleeping on the ground, and we won't be sharing a tent, but we won't be in separate rooms either."

He was giddy, she realized with a start, and felt her own excitement rise against her better judgement.

This was how she found herself riding shotgun in Heero's old jeep, a rickety relic from the war he had rescued from the scrap yard. Relena knew from experience that he was an excellent driver, but on this particular day he seemed to revel in the bumpy terrain of the unpaved road that led to his parcel of land. She was beginning to suspect that he took pleasure in the yelps she let out whenever he purposely drove over potholes.

"Heero! You'll ruin your car!"

"It's seen worse days!" He shouted over the whipping wind and the rattling frame of the battered jeep, a peculiarly cheerful lilt in his voice. Sometimes she forgot how young they were, Heero was still in the high-risk/high-reward stage of his life. In fact, their brains weren't even fully developed yet. Perhaps he was right, she did read too much psychology.

They stopped in a cloud of dust, Heero parked in a clearing between the open pasture and treed portion of his property. He had prepared this level site for building an A-frame cabin in the months to come.

She followed him out of the car, grabbing her overnight bag. He led her by the hand toward the tree line. She noted what must have been hundreds of saplings in root trainers that sat in neat rows, hazel and chestnut, according to Heero's proposed use of the land.

He stopped in front of a group of towering firs. Two camping hammocks were strung at right angles between three of the trees, one a few inches closer to the ground than the other. She stared for a moment.

"Sleeping together apart, huh Heero?"

She gave him an approving side-long glance. Heero looked so pleased with himself that she wanted to laugh, instead she tugged him by their still laced fingers and planted a kiss on his shoulder. Relena was sure that if he was a bird, his feathers would be all proudly fluffed up right now.

He built a fire a little ways away as dusk approached, blowing on the kindling until they were both teary from the smoke. Relena sat upwind from the firepit and threw in an occasional pine cone just to watch it combust. Heero was on his hands and knees beside her, still puffing away into the base of the fire. There was a cowlick on the swirl of his head that refused to lay flat, the tuft of hair tickled at her heart and made it ache for him.

A soldier who bore the name of long departed peace. He was sent to earth as a weapon, but his name was a prayer.

"Hey Heero?"

"Hmm?"

He sat back on his hunches and wiped his brows, his cheeks ruddy from the heat of the flames.

"How come you never changed your name? You could be called anything you wanted."

He was silent for a moment, staring into the flames as he formed his thoughts.

"Heero Yuy was a good man. I want to earn the right to be called by his name."

 _You've earned that right many times over_ , she thought to herself, but he would not have accepted this even if she'd told him out loud.

They lapsed into a familiar silence. As daylight faded completely, Heero busied himself with making a pot of tea. She asked him about the progress of his plantings, and the applicability of his online courses.

He had outlined his plans for a nuttery and orchard in his application for the land grant. When she first read it upon his arrival at the capital, the meaning of his proposal had hit her so hard it made her light-headed. Nuts were slow maturing trees, his plan would span decades. It seemed that Heero had chosen the most earth-bound profession he could find. Earth-bound, at her side.

During his stint at university, Heero had taken an interest in the closed-systems ecology of colony-side agriculture.

The average colony cluster dedicated one fifth of its habitable space to food and oxygen production, during the long years of inter-colonial isolation imposed by the Alliance, it was vital for each colony cluster to be self-sufficient. The lack of seasons and 24-hour sunlight meant quick harvest cycles on very minimal real estate.

Relena had once seen the L1 hydroponic facility in operation, on one of the many trips to space with her father. She was only seven at the time, and was allowed to pluck a half-ripe strawberry off the tall racks, boosted on her father's strong shoulders.

There were no fruit or nut trees grown at L1, most cultivars required either too much soil, or needed insect pollination. Bees did not fare well in space, there have been multiple attempts to introduce hives to the colonies, all of which failed to reproduce. The first generation would adapt to artificial gravity in a few days, but new eggs laid in space would not hatch.

Quatre once posited it might have been the same problem faced by early colonists who could not conceive naturally, a problem which took decades of environmental calibrations of the colonies to correct. No one was in a hurry to mess that up for a few insects.

"Space bees." she chuckled and leaned back into Heero. The fire in front of them warmed her legs and his body behind her was a solid shield from the chill of the night. His hands snuck into the pockets of her pullover and rested flat on her stomach, she could feel the heat from his palms through the soft fabric. The combination filled her with a sense of safety that she was sure reached all the way back to the Pleistocene.

As if on cue, he grunted at her childish assertion, and was not impressed when she called him a caveman. She had made up all kinds of nicknames for him since his return, it was a playful side of her that he only saw hints of before.

It would have been less improper for them to fool around when she was the Vice Foreign Minister, her private life could be separate from her public image then. Neither had dared pursue such a relationship however, the burden of their terrible purpose paralyzed them in their youth. Royalty, on the other hand, had much more traditional standards of conduct. She was now _old school_ , as Duo had put it.

The braided man pestered him with monthly video calls, every one more annoying than the last.

"Man, I know she has faith in you that could move mountains, but you're slower than the speed of continental shift!" Duo had said during his most recent call, and followed up with "You gonna make a move before the next ice age?"

Time felt both slower and faster on earth, he was not sure how both could be true at the same time. Winter seemed to never abate, at some point he stopped tallying their kisses; but when he at last came up for breath, the sun had lifted its axis in the sky, and shadows shrunk in the lengthening days. He felt the sacred cycle of time awaken something in him as old as the world itself.

The seasonality of earth still amazed him. Such dramatic changes in the colonies would be a sign of fatal systems malfunction, but on earth, the changes were anticipated, hoped for, and beautiful. To him, she was no less miraculous than the earth itself, all-generous and yet all-demanding.

He sat with his chin nested in her hair, and asked about her opinions on marriage-based alliances between royal families.

"Heero that's gross!" Relena swatted at his arms that were draped over her collar bones, "All the royal families are cousins!"

And so they danced around the issue as they watched the flames, each hiding behind the ambiguities of personal opinion and generalizations. The embers diminished to a low glow, and the two sat in the dark. He poked at the coals with a half burnt stick.

"I used to wonder what the role of a soldier could be in times of peace."

They knew each other's tells so well, that it was difficult to explore new territory without feeling scrutinized. In the near total darkness, they could speak of more intimate things. A piece of coal collapsed and broke in half, sending sparks that floated up to join the twinkling lights in the sky.

"Perhaps I should ask not as a soldier, but as a man."

She stared up at the milky way, they were far enough from the city that it seemed every star was trying to stand out. She felt his voice rumble against her back, it was the only tether anchoring her to the world.

"It's been seven years since the war." She said to the stars.

"It's time I stopped fighting."


End file.
